:
of whether the exclusion of women from the priesthood was not a product of
doctrine but merely adopted from the mores and culture of another time, a
time when women were routinely excluded from many professions.
There is a certain irony in Mr. Rogers’ reference to the Scribes and
Pharisees of the Jewish church, whose leaders began teaching as doctrines the
commandments of men. In Heaven and Hell 365 Swedenborg explains what
is meant by the rich and the poor in the New Testament. That is, he explains
who is meant by the rich of whom the Lord said, “It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of
God.” (Matthew 19:24)
In the spiritual meaning of the Word, “the rich” means people who are amply
supplied with understandings of what is true and good, that is, people in the church
where the Word is. “The poor” means people who lack these understandings but
who long for them, or people outside the church, where the Word is not found.
The rich person dressed in purple and fine linen who was cast into hell, means the
Jewish nation. Because they had the Word and were therefore amply supplied with
understandings of what is good and true, they are called “rich.” The garments of
purple actually mean understandings of what is good, and the fine linen means
understandings of what is true. The poor person who was lying in the gateway and
who longed to feast on the crumbs that were falling from the rich person’s table,
who was carried up into heaven by angels, means the non-Jews who did not have
understandings of what is good and true but who still longed for them.
(Luke 16:19, 31)
I find missing in Mr. Rogers’ paper any sense of urgency in spreading the
doctrines of our Church.
When I speak of urgency, perhaps some of these women who we, without
solid doctrinal foundation, exclude from the clergy, will be instrumental in
sharing some of the crumbs which are falling from our table with those poor
persons who long to feast on them. We can’t claim to have doctrines which are
vital to the spiritual welfare of all mankind, and yet be indifferent to whether
all mankind knows of their existence.
In closing, I must confess that I wonder where the clergy in our Church
places some of the towering female intellects in the history of our Church,
such as Hester Barclay, Helen Keller, Lydia Child and Anita Dole.
Hester Barclay was the first convert to the New Church in the Western
Hemisphere. A ward